


The Wellborn

by Ritterssport, Shmaylor, Sunquistadora



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Gen is intersex, Intersex Character, Multi, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 45-60 Minutes, This is not kid-fic, but no on-screen pregnancy, lol poor costis, political pregnancy planning, this is socio-political heir fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 07:19:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11527311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ritterssport/pseuds/Ritterssport, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shmaylor/pseuds/Shmaylor, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunquistadora/pseuds/Sunquistadora
Summary: Irene and Gen need to have a baby for political reasons, despite not especially wanting to. Gen is intersex, making this difficult, so they enlist Costis to help.[Text + Podfic]





	The Wellborn

  
_NSFW cover art by Sunquistadora_

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_SFW cover art by Shmaylor_  
  
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**Listen**  
  
_(or click[here](http://shmaylor.parakaproductions.com/podfic/2017/podtogether/The%20Wellborn%20A.mp3) for mobile streaming)_

**Length:** 58 mins

**Downloads:** [mp3 - NSFW cover art](http://shmaylor.parakaproductions.com/podfic/2017/podtogether/The%20Wellborn%20A.mp3) | [mp3 - SFW cover art](http://shmaylor.parakaproductions.com/podfic/2017/podtogether/The%20Wellborn%20B.mp3)  
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**Prologue**

 

“Do you know the story of the first Queen’s Thief?”

“I’ve had more important things to occupy me than learning your country’s myths.”

“I assume you feel differently now?”

“If you want to tell me the story so much, go ahead.”

“It follows from the story of how Eugenides became a god.”

“The one with his brother.”

“Yes.”

 

**_tiresias_ **

**_and the mountains’ raising_ **

 

_ After Lyopidus died in the fire of his own jealousy’s and Eudenides’ pride’s making, he left behind three sons. The eldest inherited his prosperous house, the second became the captain of a trading ship and lived surrounded by waters, and the third, perhaps in recompense for what his father had done, devoted himself to Eugenides. Perhaps in recompense for what  _ he _ had done, Eugenides favored him, and the third son, Tiresias, earned a reputation as a thief. _

_ His reputation spread to a king of one of the plains kingdoms, who approached him one evening at the megaron.  _

_ The king told him about Euphemia, the queen of a nearby kingdom which was small but rich in gold. His spies had discovered that Euphemia was planning to build a dam, which would greatly inconvenience him in his plans to conquer her nascent kingdom. He asked Tiresias to use his talents for subterfuge to obtain the plans for the dam, and help the king sabotage it. Should he succeed, the king would reward Tiresias with a permanent place in his court. Tiresias, third son that he was, tired of living solely by his wits, and admittedly excited for the challenge, naturally agreed. _

_ Now, the trouble was, this queen ruled without a king and kept a court entirely of women, and no men were admitted within the walls of her megaron for more than a day. _

_ First, Tiresias disguised himself as a seller of baubles and jewels, of fine ornamented combs and hairpins of plains gold and mountain silver. He came to the queen’s megaron to hawk his wares to the women of the court. But, fine though his trinkets were, the queen’s court laughed at him, and said they had all the ornaments they needed from their queen herself, finer than his, and more precious for being gifted from her hands. _

_ Next, Tiresias disguised himself as a handsome dancer, and came and tumbled before the palace, hoping to be invited inside to perform for the queen. But the women of the queen’s court merely applauded and sent him on his way; skillful though his tumbling was, they said, they prefered to entertain each other with feats of sport and skill. _

_ Thus stymied, Tiresias knew he would need more than mortal wiles to succeed. He went to the shrine of Eugenides, and spent the night there, seeking inspiration, but the stars circled a night’s rotation without granting him a plan. _

_ As he left the shrine before sunrise, a single morning star gleaming faintly above the flat horizon and his hopes fading the further he got from the shrine, he encountered a tall plain woman walking the other way. She stopped him to ask directions to the shrine, and Tiresias described the complex forking paths for her, but, before she could set forth again, offered to guide her there himself. _

_ She asked him who he was, with the air of one who already knew the answer, and when Tiresias gave his name honestly, she said, “Then you are the one King  _ _ Salus _ _ boasted to me of, who is helping him in his contest against Queen Euphemia over her dam and to seize her gold?” _

_ Tiresias admitted this was so, but that, although he had no intention of giving up, he didn’t know how he would ever succeed.  _

_ “Humility paired with determination is an admirable thing in one with a reputation such as yours. I believe I could offer some assistance in your quest. That is, if you ask it.” _

_ As no stranger to divine intervention, Tiresias had suspected the woman was a goddess. Her offer, phrased so tellingly, however, was a dead giveaway. Tiresias considered the risks of accepting the help of an unknown goddess, with unknown plans and motives. Still, he had been telling the truth—he was entirely out of ideas. And who was to say that she wasn't working with Eugenides—she had, after all, appeared right outside his shrine after a night of silence. _

_ “I would be grateful for your assistance,” said Tiresias, and the woman said, “Then I will supply it,” and she transformed him into a woman, and disappeared with the dawn. _

_ Feeling odd in the strange new body, Tiresias wandered in a daze to the queen’s megaron to beg entrance. One of the queen's ladies found Tiresias collapsed on the steps, in unfeigned distress. The lady presented Tiresias to the queen, who took pity on the flustered girl with the story of a harrowing escape from an unwanted marriage and was happy to grant indefinite sanctuary in the palace in exchange for service. Tiresias was overwhelmed at this apparent good fortune. However, as the days and weeks passed, visits to and talks with the queen became less and less about finding ways to sabotage the dam, and more about simply being with her, and gaining her trust for its own sake. _

_ The day came when Tiresias could no longer bear the weight of an increasingly guilty conscience, and resolved to tell Queen Euphemia everything. _

_ At first the queen was shocked and furious. She nearly threw Tiresias out, but she realized that the goddess Tiresias had seen was Hephestia, who had always protected her, and perhaps had sent this stranger who was no longer a stranger to her for some end. _

 

“Unrealistic.”

“Well, someone has to be more trusting than us.”

 

_ The queen saw genuine contrition before her and it moved her heart. She decided to work with Tiresias towards her own ends. Together they concocted a scheme. Tiresias was to deliver a false map to King  _ _ Salus _ _ , and false building plans.  _ _ Salus _ _ would bring his army to a narrow pass right at the end of the mountain range that ran along the edge of half the kingdom, which the map showed as quite unguarded. When he got there, the queen and her own small army would be waiting on the slopes above, amid the rocks and boulders, ready to risk their lives to send down an avalanche on Salus and his army, and ready to discover whose side the gods were really on. _

_ When the day arrived, the queen and Tiresias had been sacrificing to Hephestia, and Tiresias to Eugenides as well, for a week. The king arrived, just as the queen's spies had told her he would, prepared for invasion. But as he neared, Hephestia appeared to the queen and Tiresias. _

_ She spoke first to the queen: “If I do the thing you ask me, will you sacrifice to me that which Salus desires, and swear to keep yourself and your country faithful to me?” _

_ “Goddess, you know I always have been faithful, and you know I would sacrifice anything you ask to keep my people safe.” _

_ “Tiresias, you are dedicated to Eugenides.  Will you and your line of his favored stay in service to this country?” Upon hearing his agreement, Hephestia turned towards the oncoming army. _

_ As the soldiers of Euphemia struck the rocks and began the avalanches, Hephestia raised her arms, and as she raised her arms, so too did she raise mountains from the Earth, throwing down horses and men in their wake. The queen's kingdom was then entirely protected by the mountains, and the King’s plans ruined. _

_ And that is how there came to be a kingdom in the Hephestial mountains, without gold but sheltered by their peaks, devoted always to the old gods and their queen Hephestia, where the rulers are served by thieves equally devoted to the good of their country. _

 

Irene gazed at Eugenides, thoughtfully. She opened her mouth to ask one question, and then substituted another. “I thought the Thieves of Eddis came to be through the tradition of stealing Hamiathes's Gift.”

“It’s a story.” Eugenides shrugged. “It says more about the teller than the history of my country. My mother told it to me—it was one of her favorites.”

It was always precious to hear him refer to the better parts of his childhood, as opposed to the casually tossed-off accounts of his cousins’ cruelty or losses he’d suffered. It gave Irene the push to ask her original question after all. “Is Tiresias ever re-transformed into a man again?”

He grinned. “It’s funny you should ask that. Well, some years later, the goddess Hephestia and the god Eugenides came back to the queen’s palace and appeared to Tiresias.”

“Tiresias appears to have lived a very eventful life.”

“Once the gods take an active interest in you, things rarely stay otherwise.” Irene laughed softly, and inclined her head to concede the point. Eugenides continued, “In this case, it was for nothing so weighty as the fate of a kingdom. They’d come to settle a bet.”  
Irene’s lips thinned a little. “It’s about sex, isn’t it.”

Eugenides looked slightly affronted. “Have you heard this part before?”

“No, I simply know a setup when I hear one.”

“Well, my all-knowing queen, Hephestia and Eugenides had in fact made a bet about sex. Namely, as to whether men or women enjoyed sex more.”

“Who was betting on which?”

Eugenides threw back his head and laughed.

“Let me guess,” Irene said before he could continue, “She’d bet that  _ men _ enjoyed it more, and he’d wagered that it was women who have the most pleasure.”

He closed his mouth into a frown, and stared at her for a moment. “No, really, what’s given you all this insight?”

“When I was fourteen, I was engaged to a beastly man who never gave a moment’s thought to what he should or shouldn’t discuss with his companions in front of his fiance.” Before Eugenides’ expression had time to change, she added, “Secondly, I am daily attended by a pack of clever-tongued, opinionated women who are all  _ quite _ comfortable around one another and see no reason to censor themselves on these matters.”

“Even Phresine?”  
With the air of a card sharp laying down the best card in the deck, Irene folded her hands and informed him, “ _Especially_ Phresine.”

“I am speechless,” said Eugenides. “Wholly flabbergasted and quite without any response.”

“Don’t let that stop you from finishing the story.”

It was Eugenides’ turn to concede the point. “Well, it was as you said. The two gods had realized that they knew someone who would answer from a position of authority. They posed the question to Tiresias, who, immediately—I like to think before stopping to think about the position he was in—answered that for every bit of pleasure men experience, women experience ten.”

Irene’s mouth quirked, and her eyebrows rose. “I do like to think,” she rolled over in their bed, and tapped a finger on his bare chest. “it’s something of a function of  _ who _ one is having sex with.” 

“Why, thank you, my dear. But try arguing nuance to a god who wants an answer. A particular answer, no less. At any rate—”

 

_ Hephestia was not pleased that he lost her the bet, and instantly transformed him back into a man out of spite before disappearing. Eugenides was unsure if he should be apologetic. He questioned Tiresias, out of curiosity, whether he was glad to be a man again.  _

_ Tiresias thought, a little warier of answering this time, and replied that his body didn’t really bother him one way or another. There were advantages and disadvantages to each, but his knowledge of each, and gained in each, had allowed him to serve his queen well, and made him a better thief. Eugenides agreed that the ability to move between worlds was needed for a thief. From then on, he decreed, some of Tiresias’s descendants would be marked with a sign of this liminal nature, and that those who were should be dedicated to his service, continuing the line of thieves to the crown.  _

 

In the silent wake of the story’s conclusion, Irene looked at Eugenides with the hint of a question in her eyes.

Lightly, Eugenides said, “So you see, it was no surprise to my family when I was born as I was.”

Irene mulled this over, tracing her fingers along her husband’s body, along the flat expanse of his chest, down to the trail of fine hair, and down further to the soft wet sweetness there, as she fit these new pieces into her understanding of his history. She leaned into him and whispered, “I’m glad of that.”

“In the magus’ collected version of this story,” Eugenides breathed out quickly, “it’s about Eugenides himself, who is transformed because he offended his sister Hephestia. But I prefer my version.”

Irene smiled, kissing her husband’s shoulder. “You always do.”

  
  


**I.**

 

“I think,” said Costis, very slowly and carefully. The world had clearly gone as topsy-turvy as the festivals of Cybele and Attis, and he had to hold on very tightly to everything he was saying to avoid being swept away. “I think I misunderstood something here.”

Details were important. Costis gripped the arms of his chair, the carved wood hard under his hands. Across from him, the queen made an identical chair look like a throne. The king was leaning against the wall, right arm tucked behind his back, left hand spinning something gold from finger to finger. He risked a direct look at his queen—regal, implacable—and his king—faintly amused—but that threatened to send him back to where nothing made sense.

The queen repeated, “We’re asking you to have a child with us. Specifically, for you to conceive a child with me.”

He couldn’t help it. Costis looked at the king, at the man who whose wife had just asked him to—

The king’s hand stilled, and Costis saw that he’d been toying with his seal ring. Eugenides raised his eyebrows, and then guided Costis’s eyes back to the queen with a flick of his own dark eyes. When Costis’s gaze met Attolia’s again, his throat closed up at the unveiled anger there. It leapt from her eyes to the tightness between her brows, the compressed line of her lips.

“My queen, I’m sorry—” Costis began, horrified at himself.

Without easing, the queen turned to her husband. “We should have worked up to this.”

Costis had disappeared to both of them. “We should not have,” the king parried, “since Costis is utterly incapable of taking subtle hints. You remember how long it took to explain to him that I’m an androgene.”

It seemed slightly unfair to bring this up, since Costis had never claimed otherwise.

This must have shown on his face, because the king turned back to him and added, “It was unfair of me to simply hope that you would understand from stories and delicate clues.” The king flipped the seal of Attolia back across his hand, pinched it between his thumb and middle finger, and began working it back over his finger. “But  _ this _ is really very simple. I can’t have children; my queen and I need an heir; you—we can presume—are capable of fathering a child.”

“That’s not very simple to me!” Costis paused to gulp air into suddenly tight lungs. “Also I don’t think I’m the only one who would think that it’s not very simple! And I  _ know _ I’m not the only one around who could—um. Father a child.”

“You do happen to be the only one ‘around’, as you put it, that we’re  _ fucking _ .”

In the queen’s cool tones, the word was like being hit in the face with a practice sword during the most decorous of exercises. He bolted to his feet so fast the chair fell over.

Costis’s face had caught fire. He groped for words and came up short. For something, anything, to do, he knelt to right the heavy chair, trying not to scrape the floor.

“Oh, are you surprised to learn that?” The queen hadn’t even flinched.

“Don’t tease him.” The king squatted next to him, peering up into Costis’ face like a physician diagnosing a mysterious rash. “Costis, think of it this way—it’s no more inappropriate than you sharing our bed in the first place.”

The queen pressed their attack. “And it can hardly be it more inappropriate than punching your king.”

“Not helping,” Eugenides muttered.

“That's not fair! That wasn't premeditated!”

Irene laughed, low, almost silent.

Costis floundered again. “I mean—that wasn't premeditated by me.”

It should have been funny, the way Attolis or Attolia would bring up his past transgressions to lighten the mood. Costis managed to straighten the chair, but he was no closer to straightening out what was going on. “This would be  _ lying _ . To everyone. And about the future ruler of Attolia!”

The king looked amused again. “Are you suggesting... _ I _ shouldn’t lie?” He cocked his head sideways.

Irene chuckled dryly at the notion. “Would you undo the last year?”

Costis felt weak. “Those things were different. That was for the good of the country.”

The queen stood for the first time, and raised her voice until it was a solid force, a proclamation. “ _ This _ is for the good of the country.”

All reactions were swallowed in a silence that blanketed the room. Costis stared at Eugenides, his strange impossible king who never let him take the easy way out of anything. Eugenides stared back, unfathomable. Costis broke his gaze only to look at Irene. But Irene's eyes were unforgiving in a different way, and then he could only stare at the ground. What was he supposed to do in a situation like this, one that so thoroughly blurred the boundaries between his positions as both subject and lover? He could think of no appropriate response.

“Costis?” Eugenides prompted.

“Yes, my king?”

“Oh, Costis.” It was almost a sign, Eugenides’ face somewhere between disappointment and compassion.

“I'm sorry. I can't… right now...I don't know...I…”

“No.” Irene stopped him. “Take what time you need. Just, perhaps, take it away from here.” 

Costis was used to feeling thoroughly dismissed. This was something else. “Yes, my queen,” he managed, and, blindly, fumbling, made it out the door.

  
  


**II.**

 

The door closed with as much force as Costis would ever use taking leave of his king and queen. It might as well have been a slam—albeit an anguished one.

Irene and Eugenides looked at each other.

“That could have gone better,” the king said.

Half-unwillingly, the queen snorted. The flash of mirth disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she gazed at the door. “We should have warmed him up first.”

Eugenides crossed silently to the bed, and sat down, hunching over. They were in the suite of rooms traditionally reserved for a queen, which had been unoccupied for over a decade and for just as long—with the exception of the brief period after the wedding—had been more or less completely forgotten. Instead of the queen’s cloth-of-gold bedspread, there was one of pale blue. Against it, his brown skin warmed even more than usual.

Eventually, she accepted the invitation in his stillness, and sat down beside him. For several minutes their hands touched.

Eugenides, still looking straight ahead, broke the silence. “We don’t have to do this.”

The queen stiffened. Anger became tangible in the spread of her fingers on the bedspread. They’d had this argument already; several times. “You know that we do.”

“If you were the one incapable of having children, or if I were the queen and you king, we would—”

“You keep bringing that up as though it means anything to what  _ is _ .”

“We’d find another way,” he persisted. “We would find a way to secure the succession. The alliance with Eddis and Sounis, choosing Helen and Sophos’s child as our heir…”

The queen, briefly, glowered. “Ah, yes. Helen and Sophos. Helen is excited about having children. She’s going to go riding with them, and play catch with them, and teach them to roughhouse. And Sophos! Sophos can’t wait to read them his favorite plays and compose starry-eyed epic poetry about Helen teaching them to roughhouse.”

The king was, as always, incapable of giving up. He shifted round to face her, tucking a leg under himself. “So why not leave it to the people who want children and  _ want _ to be pregnant, instead of putting your body on the line?”

She loved to watch him do this to others, but when he turned his needling, poking arguments on her, Irene wanted to strangle him. “Because I am  _ the queen of Attolia _ . This isn’t just about me and my body. We’re not so lucky that we want to pay this price, but I’ve paid far worse ones for my country and I don’t regret it.” The queen folded her hands in her lap tightly, blazing eyes tracking the king’s movements. “You of all people know this the way I do. Look to your Tiresias—we don’t get to choose the bodies we get, but we can choose to use them the best we can. If we don’t, we could be throwing away a powerful tool as a curse.”

Gen narrowed his eyes. “Using my stories against me to win an argument is cheating, you know.”

“So you admit I’ve won?”

“ _ An _ argument, I said.” With his ever-present fluidity, Eugenides stood, and crossed the room to one of the tiny decorated tables. He leaned against the wall facing her, and began untying his hook.

Irene helped him with it, sometimes. She almost went to him to help now, but anger and some instinct agreed in her both told her to hold steady. Instead, she softened her tone. “Costis, between his looks, his loyalty, and his proximity, may as well have been placed before us by a god as the solution to this particular problem.”

The king paused at that, fingers stilling against the laces. Then he finished tugging the ties apart, and braced his feet and pulled the hook off. He dropped it on the table. “I know what Costis is to you, and to us, and proximity doesn’t exactly sum it up.”

Fury rose up in her, cold, sharp, and concentrated—a single drop of a deadly poison. “It seems more relevant to consider what we are,  _ what I am, _ to Costis. It doesn’t seem to be what I thought it was.”

He no longer hesitated before taking his hook or false hands off in front of her, but he did still hesitate every time before choosing to let her see that it hurt. She watched the fractional pause now before he rubbed the pinched flesh of his stump. Eugenides returned to the bed, and took a seat not beside her, but on the floor, leaning sideways against the bed. Accustomed to studying her intently, he looked at her now still more closely. “I know this isn’t easy for either of us, but what have I missed that’s gotten so far under your skin?”

“When I asked him, Costis looked to  _ you _ . As though you were my lord and master, and I nothing more than a, a fishwife.”

“Ah.” Gently, the king said, “He looked to me because he’s more afraid of you than of me, and he’s terrified to refuse you anything. He looked to me for support, not permission.”

After a long pause, in which the queen’s expression did not soften, she said in clipped tones, “Of course he’s not afraid of you. You’ve gone to great lengths to make sure no one here is afraid of you.”

The king kept his tone soft and steady—a peace offering. “I’ve had some luxuries you never could, yes.”

At that Irene relaxed, a little. She closed her eyes. In the resulting still darkness, she listened to the rhythmic sound of Eugenides running his hand across the bedspread next to her. He added, meditatively. “Poor Costis. We keep upsetting his role in the order of things.”

Irene opened her eyes and smiled slightly. “As the gods have done to us,” she agreed, “so we to poor Costis.”

It was his turn to laugh—although she noticed he also made a swift warding gesture and murmured something heavenward; a prayer in case her words were taken as blasphemy. “Sometimes I wonder how we even got here, doing this.”

The queen rested a hand on his shoulder and said, still dry, “I think some of it started when a goddess whose name I didn’t yet know told me that the Thief of Eddis would be in my palace that night, and how I might catch him. And when she called him  _ he _ enough times that I did the same even after I’d caught him.”

They both paused, considering.

“Some of it started when I was born as I was,” Eugenides added. “When you were born to the family you were.”

“When some enterprising Mede rolled out a map and spotted us across the sea.”

He grimaced, and then, instead, smiled a soft smile at her, cocking his head to one side. “When I hid in an orange grove and watched a princess dance.”

The queen flushed a little, always and abruptly too conscious of her heart when he brought such things up. “Regardless of when it all started, we’re here because we’re the ones who  _ can _ do this.” She looked back up into his eyes. “And we’ve chosen to use our bodies towards these goals. I know what you’ve given up for us and this work.”

“And I you, my queen.” Gen’s voice was soft, and gave way to a silence and a stillness from him so long that only the heat of his closeness proved he was still really there.

When he finally broke it, the question was still soft, but uncharacteristically direct. “Was I worth it?”

Irene’s head snapped up. She thought so often of his willingness to pay any price for her, and her doubts about whether she was worthy of that devotion, but it had never crossed her mind to consider that he might feel similarly.

“Gen.” He was gripping his knee so hard his knuckles were white. She gentled her voice to match his, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Every trial I’m facing, I would have had to endure regardless in one form or another. I was always going to have to marry, and I was always going to have to face up to the question of an heir. I  _ never _ expected that would be…uncomplicated. What you have done is ensure that I’m not facing this alone.  _ You _ make this worth it.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, face tightening in some inward struggle, and then it relaxed into a perfectly uncomplicated smile, straight at her. Irene tugged lightly on his arm, and, with no need for her to say anything, he levered himself back up onto the bed with her. For another long moment they smiled at each other, and then, as one, Irene and Eugenides relaxed against each other shoulder to shoulder, their dark hair mingling.

  
  


**III.**

 

Costis automatically paused outside in the antechamber to collect himself. It had become habit, every time he left the king and queen, to slide back into his role in the rest of the palace, to return to the Costis who, though he loved his king and queen, was no more to them than any other of the Queen’s Guard.

Even in the middle of his turmoil he knew that wasn’t true, but, rattled, Costis couldn’t help taking a few extra deep breaths before he felt he was even close to fit for public consumption. Everything about the opulent antechamber, though, was a reminder of how out of place he was. Costis briefly considered heading back to his rooms, but the thought of being around his fellow guardsmen was equally discomfiting. Instead, Costis took off for the least populated part of the palace he could think of.

Nodding hello to the attendants and all the other guards surrounding the queen’s chambers did nothing to help him calm down. Costis started moving faster, almost running, til the carved moldings at the base of the walls blurred. He dodged nobles, guards, and servants alike, hoping that everyone would just think he was on some urgent errand for the king, and had to swallow a roil of emotion at the thought.

Over the generations, various wings and crannies of the palace had fallen out of use or been put to new uses. Sometime before Costis had been recruited to the Guard, the eastern wing of the palace had been largely closed off, used only to house overflows of servants when the palace had an excess of visitors and the occasional offices of bureaucrats who couldn’t be found spaces in the more active sections of the palace complex. Wall sconces stood empty and Costis kicked up the occasional dust cloud as he hurtled through the dim corridors, turning blindly until he could finally no longer hear the bustle of the rest of the palace.

In its place, Costis could hear his own heart pounding. He kept walking, slower now, passing in and out of wide sideways pillars of indirect summer sunlight filled with dancing imprisoned dust motes, and even broader stretches of dimness.

When he saw the first face on the wall, Costis actually jumped, the plates of his armor skirt crashing together and his scabbarded sword banging hard into his shins.

It was a mural.

The jolt of terror had cleared his head, and Costis leaned against the wall and laughed.

It had been a fad twenty-odd years ago, to cover walls with murals of the families that lived there. Then the plague came. One of Costis’ oldest memories was watching his cousins whitewash over the faces of people he was too young to know were dead relatives. He hadn’t thought of it before, but maybe that was why this section of the palace was so seldom used.

He walked past ranks of life-sized figures, all staring straight out from the wall, letting his fingertips drag along the blank spaces and skipping them up superstitiously when he came to the next richly-clad torso, or the painted pillars or trees or stylized flock of birds that separated each group of figures from the next.

Costis had just come to the end of a small group of men and women, their robes even more elaborately embroidered than the last, when he saw his own face.

This time it wasn’t a jolt of terror. Costis froze, the only movement in him a convulsive swallow, and forced himself to stare.

It wasn’t quite his own face. It was an older man, a little paler, a little slimmer, the chin more pointed. And yet—

His eyes dragged up to the names inscribed in black paint beside and above each head. Costis recognized none of them, except the name surmounting the man in the center, next to his double and painted to look taller than the rest.

ATTOLIS.

This was the queen’s father, and his brother and sisters.

A sick feeling rose in Costis’s stomach. He tried to put a hand to the wall to steady himself, saw that he was leaning on another royal face, and snatched it back.

He was alone and at the end of his rope. Costis sank to the floor, heedless of his sword clattering against the flagstones, and lowered his head to his knees.

  
  


**IV.**

 

When Costis slammed back into the bedroom, he did not have the element of surprise. They were waiting for him on the bed, seated together, a study in physical contrasts but wearing almost the same expression—guarded, but glad to see him.

Costis’ fists had knotted up again. He took a deep breath and forced them open.

“Well, Costis?” the king began, just as Costis nearly bellowed out “I would like to be reassigned, my—your—my…” he trailed off, all the momentum of his fury spent despite the boil of it still inside him. He was such a fool.

The king and queen traded a look almost of naked alarm.

“You agreed to let me if I ever wanted. When we started this.” Costis gestured between the three of them, helplessly.

“We did,” said the king, taking his eyes from Costis only long enough to steal another glance at the queen, “and we’ll honor our—”

The queen stood. The rustle of her dress cut off Eugenides as effectively as a knife.

“Why?” He thought for a wild heart-pounding instant she was going to put a hand to his face, but she only stared at him. “How have we offended you, Costis?”

Her voice was unyielding, but there was enough warmth in his name to melt Costis’ paralysis. He looked at his feet, then forced himself to raise his head to address Irene and Eugenides.

“I can’t be just a face to the two of you. You should have told me you were only asking me to—to—help you with a child because I look like your uncle and because I was already,” he swallowed, stumbling forward through his own idiocy like a man mouthing a plea in an unfamiliar language, “already sharing a bed with you.”

All anger had vanished. In its place, Costis only felt hollow shame and the beginnings of a low, dull pain that pricked against his eyes with what he hoped distantly would not become tears. At least not until he was safely in his quarters, where the curtain door meant the rest of the guard would pretend not to hear.

For a long moment there was complete silence. Complete silence from the queen, who was staring at him from features that had become a mask. Complete silence from the king.

Very carefully, as though every word were being etched on a stele, the queen said, “I’m sorry that this is the treatment you expect from me.” Her voice was extremely calm.

Almost too quickly to follow, the king was at Irene’s side, but his hand coming to rest on her shoulder was slow, calculated not to surprise. “If Costis expected that of us, or you, then the fault is not in you but in Costis.”

Costis did not feel like crying anymore. He felt like he was going to punch the king again.

He hadn’t realized that the queen was holding herself so much under control until he saw her relax, just enough. This had not been the response he’d expected of them—of either of them. Now, after yet another bewildering twist, he was simply lost.

Although the king seemed to be still addressing the queen, he’d transferred his hard gaze to Costis. “Remember that, despite our recent efforts, Costis holds too low an opinion of himself.”

“What?”

“I’m sure  _ that’s _ the cause of this misunderstanding, not that Costis thinks you’re too ruthless.”

His mouth had fallen open. Costis shook his head, mutely, only training holding him in place. Costis clung to the only thing he was completely sure about at the moment and blurted out, “There is a portrait of a member of the royal family of Attolia in the east wing of the palace that looks exactly like me.” No—there was one more thing he was sure of. He took a deep breath to steel himself. “And you didn’t  _ tell _ me.”

The king crossed the room, put a hand on Costis’s elbow, and moved him irresistibly backwards until Costis’s knees hit the seat of the chair he’d knocked over last time. More pressure and he was sitting down, looking up—as he never did—at the king, who remained above him for only a moment before he sat by Costis’ feet, facing him.

“We were going to tell you.” A small smile made its way onto Eugenides’ face as he added, dryly, “We didn’t exactly get very far.”

Costis looked up at the queen, pleading. “You really were going to tell me? If I said yes?”

She took the seat across from him, but this time, instead of sitting upright as though upon a throne, she leaned forward to match him. “Whether you said yes or not, we were. There were several things we were going to tell you.”

Costis felt like a fool, asking the same question over and over again, but he persisted. “And that’s not the reason you asked me, right?”

“That is not the reason we asked you,” the queen confirmed, without a hint of impatience or dismissal. “There were factors that influenced our decision,” she paused, as though needing a moment to choose her words, “but we asked you because this was something we felt we needed to do, and there’s no one we would feel better about doing this with than you.”

It was the queen’s turn to put a hand on Eugenides’ shoulder, and he, after a moment, leaned into the touch and said, “Do you remember the story I told you, Costis, about my namesake? Do you remember the childless woodcutters?”

Costis did. “They couldn’t have children, until they encountered the earth goddess and she granted their wish, is that right?”

“Well, we’re not asking the gods. We’re asking you.”

Costis hesitated, superstitious. “Didn’t that story end badly? They had another son who was jealous of Eugenides.”

The queen smiled, and the king laughed. Attolia said, dry as ever, “That, at least, we can guarantee will never happen.”

In anyone else, Costis would have called the long silence a hesitation. Then Irene said, “Costis, the king and I are not gods.”

He blinked.

“We cannot live in the world always ready to accept or demand any sacrifice, and we cannot live in pragmatics alone. This,” and the queen, in an uncharacteristically broad sweep of her hand took in Eugenides still on the floor and Costis sitting and herself, “is something we will not live perpetually ready to turn into a tool for our advantage. It is too precious.”

Delight welled up in Costis. There was only one thing in the way. He slipped from the chair and went to his knees. “My queen, I’m sorry.” He looked up at the queen, daring to meet her eyes, and what he saw there gave him the courage to ask, “Forgive me?”

The queen said nothing, but beckoned. Costis shuffled forward, awkward on his knees but unwilling to rise, until he was close enough he could have kissed her feet. Irene leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

“Aren’t you going to ask  _ my _ pardon, Costis?” the king asked, with a petulance Costis recognized and was absurdly fond of.

It definitely detracted from the point of kneeling, Costis thought, joyfully annoyed, when one of the people you were kneeling to insisted on sitting on the floor. “I would if I thought you would give it to me so gracefully.”

“I’ll forgive you if you tell me whether or not you’ll—” the king floundered for a minute— “whether you agree to our proposition or not.”

Costis blushed.

“Before you say anything,” Irene interjected, “if you agreed we would have to send you away. Only for a short time. But we would want you to stay safely out of suspicions’ way, for a little while.”

“I have an interesting task in mind for that if you say yes,” the king added.

Costis hesitated, and got to his feet. “I have a few questions.”

The queen inclined her head. “Of course.”

“You don’t...want to be parents, do you?”

Eugenides and Irene traded a look. “A good question. No.” Anticipating his next question, the queen said, “We do have several people who will be very pleased to help nurture and raise our heir.”

“Like Teleus. He is stoically delighted at the prospect of cradling said infant against his breastplate.” The king was utterly straight-faced. “I predict this child will end up the mascot of the Queen’s Guard and with many protective older brothers.”

Costis started. “Teleus.”

The king’s resulting grin wasn’t surprising, but the queen’s matching one was.

“That would be….amazing. And I would be back to see that?”

“Absolutely,” the queen confirmed.

“Then,” Costis took a deep breath, “yes.”

  
  


**V.**

 

The queen pulled her golden headband from its place in her hair, and laid it carefully aside. “Shall we?”

This was far from the first time the three of them were together like this, but in some ways, it felt like it. Not the excited anticipation, but the nervousness—the uncertainty of how to begin, the hesitancy of how to touch bodies that each had thought they’d learned. 

Costis knelt again before Irene where she sat on the bed, and held and kissed her hand. “May I?”

“Certainly.”

Costis rose, his hand trailing up Irene’s arm to her neck, brushing her hair aside and over one shoulder to find her laces. He started undoing them with one hand, fumbling a little, and running his fingers through her hair with the other.

He stopped halfway through the row. She normally responded well to this, but she was as stiff and straight-backed as when they’d started.

“I think,” she said, “I’d actually prefer if you or Gen got undressed first.”

“Of course. Whatever you’d like,” Costis agreed hastily, backing away.

“I mean, I’d—we’d— like you to do what you’d be comfortable with as well.”

“Why would I be uncomfortable with that,” Costis asked, uncomfortably.

Gen interrupted before they could go in any further circles. “You’re both overthinking this, aren’t you?”

“...Yes?” Costis said, at the exact same time Irene contradicted, “I don’t know that it’s  _ over _ thinking.”

Gen laughed. “Never mind. Costis, help me out of this instead, won’t you?”

Costis sprang off the bed, relieved at having a direct instruction to follow. Gen had his hook off already, making it a bit easier for Costis to remove his jacket. It wasn’t as if Gen couldn’t undress himself, but Costis enjoyed serving his king and queen like this. It has become a comfortable space for him, sensual, but not overstepping too many boundaries, letting him ease himself into a more relaxed space. At least, normally that was what happened. Right now, he couldn’t stop thinking—something about the whole situation made it feel like this was more of a script to be played out than the spontaneous, if sometimes ritualistic, expression of his devotion and attraction to them.

Costis undid the knot of his sash and the laces on Gen’s pants, letting them sink to the floor. He would usually spend some time lavishing attention on Gen’s thighs—it seemed so funny now  that anyone had ever been tricked into thinking him weak when he had such lovely muscles—but something made him look back over his shoulder at Irene first.

Gen sucked air in through his teeth, and it escaped back out in an awkward release. “And now I’m the one who’s most naked and the least involved in this.”

“You are  _ very _ involved in this,” Irene retorted, at the same time that Costis, interpreting this as another order, began stripping down with soldierly efficiency.

Gen laughed at the two completely different responses, each so telling. Irene and Costis exchanged a look, and both laughed a little as well.

“Perhaps I’ve been overthinking this as well,” Gen conceded. “Can we just…take a step back for a minute?”

“Thank the gods you’ve got the mind of an excellent strategist. Yes.” Irene rose from the bed and crossed to a table with a tray holding a few winecups and an amphora of wine.

Gen grabbed Costis’s hand and lead him over to the bed, where the two collapsed, and Irene joined them, handing winecups to each and leaning her back against the wall.

She lifted hers in a silent toast, and the men mirrored her. They drank for a while in silence, and Costis, feeling the heat of their skin radiating against his, drank in the simple feeling of their presence, letting it fill him up.

“Costis,” the queen broke the contented silence, “do you know the first thing I loved about you?”

“No, my queen,” he said, almost shyly.

“You were the first person in Attolia, besides myself, that loved Eugenides.”

The king blushed, but covered it by saying, “I thought you said Phresine liked me!” 

“Hush.”

“I thought, at the time, that I was the only one in all of Attolia.” Costis was blushing too, now.

“As you were intended to.” She hesitated, searching for the words. “But that made it all the more precious—your feelings were your own, not for someone else's approval.”

Costis couldn’t meet her eyes, but he could—barely—make himself reply. “I do want your approval though. Both of you.”

Eugenides laughed and ruffled Costis’s hair, disturbing its curls. “You have it.”

“In spite of today?” Costis couldn’t help the note of worry that crept into his voice.

Eugenides stilled his hand, letting it rest at the base of Costis’s neck. “There’s no in spite of, as long as we still have yours where the three of us are concerned.”

The queen had been watching them. “I don’t think today fundamentally changes anything.” She paused. “I think the problem here is that we are all thinking about a child, but this,” Irene gestured, taking in the bed, “this is not about a child.”

Costis hesitated. “Isn’t it?”

“No. The child is a means to an end. But we are not a means to an end to each other.”

Eugenides took her hand. “No, we’re not.”

The tension in the room eased away, like it had been a physical being, sharing the bed with them, that had just seen itself out.

Costis drained his wine so he could rid himself of the cup, and put his hands to the superior use of pulling first Gen and then Irene into a kiss.

“Oh, Costis.” Gen was smirking. “I know a way you could get my approval.”

Costis smiled back so broadly his face started to hurt. “Is that so?”

Irene put her cup down on the bedside table and raised an eyebrow. “Not before someone helps me out of this dress. You know I can’t do it myself, and it’s hardly decorous of me to be so sartorially out of step with my company.” 

Both men gladly hastened to her side, and began to undress her. The two of them, despite their intentions in tandem, kept accidentally working against each other. Gen pulled one sleeve down, then stopped and kissed Irene’s shoulders and arms, only for Costis, focusing too hard on his own task of pulling her skirt out from under her, and knock Irene forward and into Gen.

“You’d both make terrible attendants,” Irene chastised, happily, from the resulting dogpile on the bed.

Gen, awkwardly trapped beneath her, looked up right in her eyes. “I, for one, do not want to think any more about any of your attendants at the moment.”

She pulled her arm the rest of the way out of her remaining sleeve, and swatted Gen affectionately, before kissing him on the forehead. 

“Costis, if you please?” He helped her the rest of the way out of the dress, and got up to place it carefully over a chair, while Irene stretched back out on the bed.

Gen was lying on his stomach now, head propped in his hand. Costis knelt in front of him. “I believe you mentioned something about earning your approval, my king?”

“You know, I did, didn’t I?” He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, on either side of Costis, and looked up, eyes dark and teasing.

Costis swallowed and wasted no time in bending to kiss Gen’s thighs.

He had made good study of this, and when his tongue finally parted wet folds of flesh, Gen moaned and folded forwards, bracing himself on Costis, hand on his neck and back, and face buried in his hair.

Irene watched, face resting in a small smile. She’d resumed drinking her wine, holding it in one hand in what one might almost call a disinterested manner - but only if one didn’t notice what occupied her other hand.

Costis wanted desperately to look up to see the effect he was having on Eugenides—and Irene—but he wanted even more desperately to not stop, to keep tasting between Eugenides’ legs.  “I love,” he panted out against the king’s skin, “I love that I can take your whole cock in my mouth.” The king groaned and so did Costis in response, catching heat and arousal from him like fire. He was mumbling, barely words now— “I love feeling all of it.”

Costis shut his eyes and worked his tongue, and Gen gave a long, shivering groan, his back arching, and fell back hard against the bed.

His head narrowly missed the queen’s leg, and his hair brushed her thigh. He smiled lazily and blissfully up at her. “Hello, my beautiful wife.” Even in this state, he was irrepressible. “Having a nice time?”

“You noticed? I thought you were quite distracted.”  
“I notice everything,” Gen proclaimed, and let his head fall sideways so he could kiss her thigh.

Costis clambered up onto the bed, pulling himself over Gen, letting his cock brush against the king’s small hardness, still persistent. Eugenides’ next words—probably another boast—were cut off by a moan, and Costis swallowed that too in a kiss, letting Gen taste himself on Costis’s tongue.

Eugenides propped himself up, smiling with complete affection. He kissed Costis on the cheek, a gentle brush of lips. “Thank you, Costis.”

Costis flushed all over with pleasure. He couldn’t help a wide grin, as Eugenides somehow managed to stretch gracefully across the bed, to press more kisses against Irene’s hip, her leg, the curve of her stomach, everywhere he could reach. Costis didn’t quite understand how Gen could, with only one hand and without the slightest pause in his ministrations, unfold himself without falling over until he was sitting back up, kissing her breasts, her collarbone, her neck. His fingers stroked across the back of her hand before tangling in hers.

Irene had closed her eyes. She reopened them to find Costis. The queen extended a hand, and Costis shuffled closer so she could bury her hand in his hair and tug. “You’re not done yet.”

Costis shivered. “Definitely not.”

He wasn’t graceful at all, especially compared to the king, as he lifted his head desperately to kiss her. 

Irene collected herself, humming and placing a finger over Costis’s lips before she pushed herself off the bed. She was heading towards the table, but was stopped for a moment by Costis’s whimper—“Oh no, please don’t leave!”

She took a moment to pour herself a cup of water and take a sip, before she looked back over her shoulder and murmured, “Come get me then.”

Costis, incapable of disobeying a direct order from her, followed after her without a moment’s thought. 

She had just enough time to put the water back down before he reached her, put a hand on either side of her waist, and scooped her into the air.

Costis froze. Then, very carefully, he set the queen back down again.

Irene  _ looked _ at him, lifted a hand to her mouth, and then, impossibly, giggled.

“Do that again.”

“...Did you just giggle?” For what might be, as far as Costis knew, the first time in his life, the king sounded completely incredulous.  
“He’s very strong.” She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Costis’s neck, and announced over his shoulder, “You should try it.”

“One at a time,” Costis said, and went completely red.

Irene saved him from dwelling on his embarrassment, as she kissed the blushing tip of his earlobe, biting and licking it, her breath warm. He responded hungrily. “Hold on to me,” Costis breathed, and bent his knees to pick her up again, both arms underneath her thighs. She helped him this time, wrapping her legs around him, and kissing him hard. 

He shifted her weight in his arms, and carefully freed one hand to guide himself inside her. Irene’s arms closed even tighter around him, and her small moans, directly into his ear, made him dizzy with pleasure.

There was a noise from the bed. Costis slowed, and turned his head from Irene’s perfect neck. Eugenides had propped himself up half-sitting on an array of pillows, and was gazing at them, face flushed, lips parted. Costis took in the sight of his scarred, muscled body, such a contrast to the soft bedclothes around him, 

Even with Irene in his arms, he covered the distance to the bed in two strides, and carefully, his arm muscles quivering, laid her down. The queen was beaming.

Irene rolled over, crawling between Gen’s legs to kiss him. Costis joined behind her, wrapping an arm around her and running his free hand up Gen’s leg. 

She turned again, settling her back against Gen’s chest, resting her head next to his, and staring at Costis in an invitation he would not—could not—refuse.

The three of them traded kiss after kiss, mouths open, gasping, eager and deep, as hands reached for as much of each other as they could touch—gripping an arm here, sliding along a back there, fingers trailing down chests and cupping faces, Eugenides stroking Irene as Costis entered her again and again. They went on, tangled up in each other, unwilling to part, until the pleasure of it swallowed each, and they could go on no more.

  
  


**VI.**

 

Costis lay in blissful contentment between his king and his queen, without a thought in his head. He couldn’t muster up the energy, much less the desire, to move from where he lay wrapped up in Irene and Gen—but neither of them showed any inclination to move either, and so Costis felt it was probably all right.

After quite some time, a thought from before they’d started did come creeping back. He cleared his throat. “Um…”

“Yes, Costis?”

“How do we know this worked?”

A laugh. “We don’t. We’ll have—”

“—we’ll have to do this again sometime to make sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note on language: one of the authors is intersex, and we thought a lot about what language to use for Gen, as the word "intersex" wouldn't realistically be in use. Given the series' pseudo-Greek setting, hermaphrodite would have been the real-world analogue, but we don't want to promote the usage of that word in regard to humans. We settled on androgyne because it was already an extant word with appropriate etymology, but was never in usage to the degree that hermaphrodite was, so avoids some of the connotations and historical weight. Please don't use either to describe people in the real world.


End file.
